A Young Adult Book Blog

The Star-Touched Queen

The Star-Touched Queen

Maya is cursed with a horoscope that promises a marriage of Death and Destruction, which earns her the scorn and fear of her father's kingdom. Content to follow more scholarly pursuits, her whole world is torn apart when her father arranges a wedding of political convenience to quell outside rebellions. Soon Maya becomes the queen of Akaran and wife of Amar. But Akaran has its own secrets, and soon Maya suspects her life is in danger. Yet who, besides her husband, can she trust?

Review:

The Star-Touched Queen caught my attention from the very beginning when it was pitched as a retelling of the Hades and Persephone myth with Indian mythology. Unfortunately, the end result is something rather underwhelming and disappointing.

16-year-old Maya is shocked when she is rescued from an arranged marriage by a mysterious man named Amar. In a shocking turn of events, Maya becomes Amar’s wife…and becomes queen of a mysterious kingdom no one knew existed.

One of the biggest problems with The Star-Touched Queen is that the plot is virtually nonexistent. There is no conflict, no tension, no problem to be solved, and, as such, the story becomes boring rather quickly.

Maya is where I felt a bit distant from the book. There is nothing about her character that feels authentic or realistic and, as such, it’s extremely hard to connect or relate to her. She just felt so one-dimensional and simplistic, and I wish there was more to her character.

The romance also felt rather flat as well. There is no chemistry between Maya and Amar, and I didn’t feel anything for them as a couple besides a sense of ambivalence. Their relationship seemed rather forced and unrealistic.

Furthermore, the ending is rather rushed and confusing. There needed to be more clarity and explanation for how everything played out because everything happened so quickly that you were left thinking:

The prose is beautiful, but eloquent writing is not enough to cover up underdeveloped characters and a lacking plot. It’s a shame, because the premise had a lot of potential.